Steven Havill - Scavengers

“Huh,” Pasquale said, and frowned.

“Huh, is right,” Perrone added. “My hunch is that the victim dug his own grave. Or at least took part in the ceremony. But that’s just a hunch. It’d be nice if he had great big shovel blisters on his hands, but he doesn’t.” He knelt down and turned one of the victim’s hands palm up. “This young man was used to work.” He traced along the plastic bag that covered the man’s palm. “No dude here. I’ll take a closer look and see if anything interesting shows up.” He stood up. “And by the way, the same thing is true of Mr. Doe from over west of here. You’ve got two hard-working men who ran afoul of somebody with a quick trigger finger. John and Juan Doe.”

He turned to Jackie Taber who had meticulously retrieved, bagged, and tagged the shovel. “The state lab is going to want to go over that, too. We might get lucky.”

“I think we did, sir,” Jackie Taber said, “There’s what looks like blood and human hair on the backside.”

“Better and better,” Perrone replied. As he talked, Estelle had been watching the progress of a yellow truck as it approached from the south. “The landlords,” she said. In another moment, the truck pulled to a stop behind the ambulance, and they could see the round Posadas Electric Cooperative shield on the door.

Marvin Hudson got out and hesitated, one hand anchored to the truck. As Estelle approached, he remained in place, forehead in a worried frown. Another man whom Estelle didn’t recognize remained in the vehicle.

“Good morning, sir,” she said.

“They told us over the radio that there was all kinds of traffic up this way,” Hudson said. “The supervisor said it might be a good idea to drive on up and see what was going on. See if there was anything we could do.”

Hudson’s eyes darted this way and that, taking in all the vehicles and the small group standing by the pile of dirt not far from one of the power poles. He was a chubby man, his brown utility shirt stretched tight across a gut that draped over his belt. He turned and looked at Estelle, eyes inventorying her slender figure and then retreating back to her face.

“I guess we’ve met, ain’t we?” Hudson said, and extended his hand.

“I believe so, sir. I’m Undersheriff Reyes-Guzman.”

“Okay,” Hudson said, as if all the memory cells had been jogged on-line. “I got used to always workin’ with old Bill Gastner. He’s as much of a fixture as I am.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How’s he doing, by the way?”

“Fine, sir.”

Hudson released his hold on the truck and took a step forward. “So what’s the deal here?”

“One of the deputies discovered some human remains, sir,” Estelle said.

“No shit?” Hudson said. “Who is it, do you know?”

“No, sir, we don’t.”

“Know how it happened?”

Estelle shook her head. “We don’t know that either, sir.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Hudson added. His eyes narrowed. “Is this related to that thing yesterday? I’m hearing that they found some guy dead over in the MacInernys’ gravel pit.”

“We don’t know, sir.” She said it pleasantly enough, but it wasn’t the informative answer Hudson was looking for. Estelle saw a brief flash of irritation cross his face, then a shift of the eyes at the same time as gravel crunched behind her. Tom Pasquale ambled up and leaned an arm on the hood of the company truck. Hudson put his hands in his hip pockets.

“What are you guys up to?” Pasquale asked. He turned slightly and aimed an index finger at the young man in the truck cab and flicked a couple of shots off with his thumb. The target lifted a hand in tentative greeting.

“Just drove on up to see who the hell was messin’ with our electric lines,” Hudson replied. “Looks like you guys got quite a deal goin’ on.”

Tom nodded and cocked his head at Hudson. “When did Eurelio start workin’ for you folks?”

Hudson shot a glance at his partner. “Hell, it’s been a couple of months now. You two know each other?”

“Oh, sure,” Tom said. He patted the hood of the truck and ambled around to the passenger side.

Hudson took a deep breath. “So,” he said to Estelle. “Is there anything you need from us?”

“Not at the moment, sir,” Estelle replied. “If either of you happen to remember seeing or hearing anything out in this area in the past couple of weeks-any unusual traffic, anything at all-I’d appreciate you giving us a call.”

Hudson grunted in dismissal. “This ain’t the sort of place I hang out much, young lady. You might talk with Eurelio, there. He’s one of the locals. You want me to give Matt Tierney a buzz?” Estelle knew that Tierney, as area manager of the Electric Coop, would be interested to know that the transmission line right of way was being used for the disposal of more than beer cans.

“I’ll be talking to him later today, most likely,” she said. “There’s nothing else we need at the moment. Right now, we’re waiting for the coroner to finish up. That always takes a while.” She smiled at Hudson. “How often do you get up this way?”

“Blue moons,” Hudson said. “This line here is just a straight shot, you know. No pots or anything. Not much is going to happen. Once in a while some damn kid from Maria wanders up this way to shoot snakes or something and ends up doing a little target practice on things he shouldn’t. But most of the time, we don’t have much cause to come up this way. Hell, I haven’t been up here since before Thanksgiving. There’s a routine inspection schedule, but I don’t know what it is offhand. Tierney would know.” His lips pursed. “Technically speaking, this transmission line doesn’t even belong to us. Sort of a reciprocity thing with the big guys, you know.”

She saw Hudson’s neck stretch and turned to see the two paramedics maneuvering the corpse into a black plastic body bag. “Geez,” Hudson said. “Tried to bury him and all, eh? This ain’t the easiest diggin’ in the world, out here.”

“No, it’s not,” Estelle agreed.

“What, was he shot, or what?” Hudson sounded as if he were fishing for a tour invitation, and of course an opportunity to gape at the corpse would be a nice bonus.

“That’s what the coroner will tell us, sir.”

Even Marvin Hudson was bright enough to know that Dr. Alan Perrone wasn’t about to sit down for a nice chat. “Well,” he said, reaching for the truck’s door handle, “if there’s anything we can do for you, you let me know.”

“I’ll be in touch, sir.” She heard Tom Pasquale chuckle at something that Eurelio said, and then Hudson climbed aboard and started the truck.

“There’s a good clear spot right behind you there,” Pasquale said helpfully, and they watched the power company truck kick rocks as Hudson backed up over a small berm and cranked the wheel. He lifted a hand in salute as he drove off.

“I think that old Marvin doesn’t like me much,” Tom Pasquale said.

“I noticed that.”

“I gave him a ticket last week. He didn’t say anything about it, did he?”

“No, but he was pretty quick to put his hands in his pockets so he didn’t have to shake hands with you.”

Pasquale laughed. “Oh, yeah. You noticed that, too.”

“Who’s Eurelio?”

“Oh, him? That’s Eurelio Saenz. You know the intersection in Maria? He lives in that house with the turquoise trim on the south side of the road. His mother owns the bar right next door. La Taberna Azul, I think it’s called.”

“Paulita Saenz is his mother?”

“That’s the one. Most of the family lives across the border. I think Eurelio’s got about a hundred cousins down there.”

“Paulita was originally from up north, though. Chama, I think,” Estelle said. She smiled at the quizzical look on Pasquale’s face. “Once upon a time, she and my Uncle Reuben had a little thing going.”